


caring for your panicking spaghetti

by MargotCelvin



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Caring Boyfriend Richie Tozier, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Flashbacks, Fluff, Getting Together, I don't know why I wrote this but here we are, It's a strange mix, M/M, Panic Attacks, Soft Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22488640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargotCelvin/pseuds/MargotCelvin
Summary: Eddie has panic attacks after that summer. Richie's always there to help.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 113





	caring for your panicking spaghetti

Richie hadn’t really thought anything of it when he heard the door of his room open and close. It was probably Eddie or his roommate. Eddie was way more likely since Richie hadn’t seen his roommate in almost a month. The kid just up and left one day, at least he took all his stuff with him, although he might still have a room key. The answer was made blatantly clear when his notebook was taken out of his hand.

“Eds, I was working on that.” Eddie didn’t respond, only making sure the door was locked, tossing his stuff by Richie’s desk, and crawling onto Richie, curling up so that he could bury his face in Richie’s chest. His grip was tight on Richie’s arm. Richie didn’t need to ask any other questions. “Panic attack?” Eddie nodded his head as much as he could, although he was also trying to curl in on himself more.

Richie wrapped his free arm completely around Eddie and moved his other arm as much as he could to hold onto the boy on his lap. This wasn’t the first time they had done something like this. Eddie had always gone to Richie when he had a panic attack. They weren’t as frequent in high school as they are now, but they were a lot worse when they started.

The first one Richie had ever seen was when they were freshmen. Richie and Eddie were in the same math class. Eddie had been perfectly fine when class started. Richie had been taking notes when he caught Eddie’s lack of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked over and noticed that Eddie was so intensely staring at his notebook. His hand was shaking and he was hyperventilating. The last time he had seen Eddie even somewhat like this was when a killer clown popped out of a projector in Bill’s garage.

“Eds,” Richie whispered, he was incredibly thankful that Eddie had agreed to sit in the back of the classroom with him. “Eds.” Eddie looked over, although he looked like a deer caught in headlights. “What’s wrong?”

Eddie didn’t answer Richie. He turned back to the front of the room and raised his hand. Richie noticed how bad his hand was shaking now that he wasn’t clutching a pen.

“Mr. Kaspbrak?”

“Can I go to the bathroom? Please?”

“Sure,” their teacher sounded as confused as Richie felt. He was sure the rest of the class felt the same, Eddie never left class during a lesson, and he certainly didn’t use the bathrooms at school. Richie watched Eddie leave the room, more confused in this moment than he had ever been in his entire life. What the fuck was happening with his best friend? Should he start calling Eddie his crush in his head? That’s what he was.

“Mr. Tozier,” Richie snapped his gaze back to his teacher, “Pay attention, please.”

“Sorry.” Richie tried to pay attention, Eddie would ask for his notes later, but he couldn’t. All he could think about was that something was up with Eddie, and he just wanted to fix it. Richie was always trying to protect Eddie. Hell, he had been doing it for years but it only got worse since that fucking clown.

Did this have something to do with Pennywise? That thing was dead. They killed it. Right? Minimum they had ended it for now.

Richie jumped when the bell rang. He saw that Eddie still hadn’t gotten back. He cursed under his breath and packed up both his and Eddie’s things. He needed to find Eddie. The closest bathroom was going to be his first bet. He had asked to go there.

Richie pushed the door of the bathroom open and looked inside. He saw that there was one stall that was closed, and he was reasonably sure he recognized the shoes. Richie knocked on the stall door figuring if he was wrong, this might be the easiest way to explain away what he was doing.

“One minute,” yeah it was Eddie, Richie would recognize his voice anywhere.

“Eds, it’s me.”

“Richie?” Why did it sound like Eddie had been crying?

“Yeah. Open the door.” Eddie sniffled and stood up; he had been sitting on the floor. Richie’s guess that Eddie had been crying was confirmed when he saw the state Eddie was in.

“Is class over?”

“Yeah. Come out here?” Eddie shook his head.

“I can come in there, I guess.” Eddie nodded his head and let Richie come into the bathroom stall with him. Eddie had hidden in the slightly bigger of the few stalls in this bathroom. Eddie let out a shaky breath before locking the door and turning to Richie.

“Will you hold onto me?” Richie gaped at the question. Normally, Eddie would act like he didn’t want Richie to touch, which really hurt the self-esteem. But Eddie asked him this time, who was he to say no?

“Yeah. Um, yeah, I can totally do that.”

“I don’t need you to if that will make you uncomfortable.”

“No. No, it was just surprising. I’ll do whatever you need me to.” Eddie grabbed onto Richie’s shirt and pulled the taller of the two towards him, burying his head into Richie’s chest. Richie instinctively wrapped his arms around Eddie, he did ask to be held. They stood like that for what seemed like a long time. The bell signaling that the next period was starting rang at some point while they were like that. Eddie finally seemed like he wanted to talk about what was going on, although Richie hadn’t dared to ask again.

“What if we didn’t kill it? What if we just pissed it off and it’s waiting for the perfect moment to kill us? Richie, I don’t want to die. I don’t want you or- or any of the others to die.” Eddie tightened his grip on Richie and started hyperventilating again, Richie was sure he was crying again too.

“It’s dead, Eddie. You helped kill it. We couldn’t have done it without you.” That seemed to placate one of Eddie’s fears, but there was another that had seemed worse to him that day.

“But what if you had gotten caught in the lights?” Eddie didn’t need to specify what the lights were, Bev had told them all about the experience when they made their pact.

“You’d have figured out how to save me.”

“What if I couldn’t? What if none of us could have?”

“I believe you would’ve, although I guess we’ll never know.” Richie almost said that Eddie could’ve done the same thing Ben did for Beverly. That it would’ve worked just as well on him. But now wasn’t the time. At least he didn’t think it was, Eddie apparently thought differently.

“Think I could’ve pulled a Ben and gotten you out that way?” Eddie was clearly joking through his tears, but Richie wanted to believe he was serious.

“Yeah. It would’ve worked.”

“What?” Eddie leaned his head away from Richie’s chest, so look up at him. “What did you say?”

“I said that if I had gotten caught in the lights and you kissed me, I would’ve come out of it.”

“Like if any of us had kissed you?”

“No. Only you.” Richie didn’t know where this bravery, or stupidity he couldn’t tell right now, was coming from, but he was going to run with it to wherever it went. He was really hoping it went somewhere good.

“Are you being serious?” Richie nodded, not glancing away from large brown eyes, suddenly so full of hope, something he hadn’t seen in them in such a long time. Large tears had left trails behind them as they had rolled down freckled cheeks. Richie found himself unable to stop his thumb from swiping on of them away. “Rich?”

“Yeah.”

“When I’m not having a panic attack, do you want to go out sometime?”

“I’d love that.” Richie returned his arm to encircle Eddie, who leaning his head against a warm chest again. “But I’m in no rush. We can stay like this for as long as you need to.”

“Thank you, Richie.” They would end up staying like that for a while, eventually just deciding to return to class after this one ended. Instead, they remained in the bathroom and planned out their apparent first date, although Eddie was pretty sure this could be counted as their tenth or something if they really wanted it to.

Eddie would go to Richie every time he had a panic attack. He was always able to ground himself a lot faster when he was able to bury part of himself into Richie; chest, stomach, shoulder, it didn’t matter. All that mattered with Richie. All that mattered was that he could sit in silence if he needed to or he could fill the room with words, mostly nonsense but still. And he never had to specify which he needed; Richie always knew somehow. Eddie asked about that one time, Richie replied that it was just magical boyfriend abilities, Eddie had rolled his eyes at that. Like this time, he needed both. He needed silence to collect his thoughts, but then he also needed Richie to make noise.

Richie shifted slightly on his bed, he wasn’t trying to get Eddie to move, only adjusting since his legs were going somewhat numb. Richie hadn’t noticed that he had started humming at some point. It was just a strange habit of his humming to fill the silence when Eddie didn’t want to talk. Eddie appreciated it. He liked to try and guess what song Richie was humming without asking, he was usually able to guess them correctly.

Richie stopped humming, although that was only to ask the question, “Do you know what set it off this time?” Eddie shook his head. Sometimes he knew. Sometimes he could pinpoint exactly what was said to him or what he saw or heard that had set off the panic; other times it seemed to hit him like a truck he hadn’t seen coming.

“Do you want to go home for the weekend?” Sometimes Eddie would feel trapped if he stayed somewhere too long. But Eddie shook his head again. He was already feeling better. He knew he would be able to talk in a few minutes. Had he been able to speak, then maybe he would’ve told Richie that he was home, that home was where Richie’s heartbeat was. “Do you want to do something off campus this weekend? We can take a day trip to the city.”

Eddie nodded at that one. He sighed heavily and basked in the warmth that was his boyfriend, who returned to his humming. It was nice like this. It was nice to not have to think about class and keeping up relationships with people that he maybe didn’t care that much about and trying to convince his mother that he wasn’t dying constantly and that she didn’t need to come out here and pick him up.

God, he just needed a minute to breathe. He couldn’t catch his breath with everything going on. He knew that’s why he had panic attacks, although the specific triggers were always changing. Sometimes someone would mention clowns and memories and fears of that summer would come rushing back. Sometimes people would bash his sexuality, knowingly or not, but then he would overthink that maybe he was sick. Sometimes he would notice a girl flirting with Richie and he would worry about the stability of their relationship; apparently, Richie never worried when girls flirted with Eddie for obvious reasons. And whenever he felt trapped, it got so much worse.

Shouldn’t he have felt more trapped in high school under his mother’s roof? He had far fewer freedoms. But he had never felt freer than when he would ride on the back of Richie’s bike with him on their way to the clubhouse, just the two of them. Sneaking around, avoiding all the major roads and large sewer drains. Everything had felt so easy back then. Now the only thing that felt easy was being with Richie.

“You’re overthinking again,” Richie whispered into Eddie’s hair. Eddie smirked to himself and turned his head more into Richie’s chest. “Don’t think, just exist.”

“What if existing is hard?” Eddie’s voice sounded rough; panic did that to him.

“That’s what makes the good parts worth it.” Richie was right, surprisingly.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I saw a Tumblr prompt about Eddie having panic attacks and cuddling with Richie to help so here we are. I wrote this very quickly for me so I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, yes. I still have really long WIPs started that I should be working on but I have no motivation for those. 
> 
> Come fangirl with me/say hello on my Tumblr or Twitter. Both are @MargotCelvin !


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